With the rapid development in the electronic fields in recent years, the performance of various electronic devices has largely been upgraded to provide higher and higher operating and data processing speeds. With the constantly increased operating speed of the chipsets and the constantly increased number of chips inside the electronic devices, more heat is produced by the electronic devices during their operation. Typically, the heat must be dissipated away from the chips to avoid damage and/or reduced performance.
Some conventional electronic devices employ a cooling fan disposed within an exterior housing of the electronic device to create airflow to dissipate heat produced by the electronic elements of the device. However, due to a current miniaturization trend, current electronic devices often have limited internal space for mounting a cooling fan and/or for creating sufficient airflow to dissipate the necessary heat. In addition, conventional cooling fans consume a relatively large amount of power, which decreases the performance of portable electronic devices which may rely on batteries for operation.
Other conventional electronic devices may utilize a statically fixed heat spreader between a surface of one or more chipsets and the exterior housing of the electronic device. The heat spreader transfers heat generated by the chipset to the exterior housing for dissipation out of the electronic device. However, a user's experience of the electronic device may be governed, in part, based on the user's touch perception of a temperature of the electronic device. For example, if a temperature of the exterior housing of the electronic device (e.g., mobile phone) is too high, then the user may experience discomfort while holding the electronic device in their hand and/or when holding against their face/ear. Furthermore, a user may perceive a warm or hot device as malfunctioning or as not operating correctly.